Whipstitch
by Oceanbreeze7
Summary: One should make their toys from the finest silk and the best thread. A scrapper indeed but the quickest of them all, and what an investigator too! One shouldn't play with their food, only with pretty dolls and blinded pawns. And Juuzou Suzuya would be the best little toy Eto had ever made.
_"What do you mean-...Can't possibly be better then my R-..."_

 _"Madam a large sum has already been procured-..."_

 _"Oh why do you make such a fuss over your little pet? It's so much more useful n-..."_

 _"You've soiled my little-..."_

 _"It isn't waking up. The others were so much prettier."_

 _"No no. I don't understand, this one should- it went perfectly!"_

 _"Maybe your little lab rat isn't so perfect after all."_

 _"What a dissapoi-..."_

 _"Ma-...evacuate the b-...no time!"_

 _"Oh wh-...e hurry Kanou?"_

Juuzou Suzuya woke up very confused, very groggy, and in _pain_.

The fact that he _was_ in pain was a perplexing problem. He blinked dazed, his eyes never quite focusing and eyelids never quite opening all the way. His left hand rose limply, smacking onto his collarbone with a dull _thud._

A low groan rolled in the air as white hair shook and cracked his neck. Slowly with lethargic caution, his right arm moved to prop his torso upwards. All the while his left hand clutched at his chest instinctively; where his visible ribs joined into his sternum, there was a smoldering flare of unique pain that was foreign and invasively unpleasant.

He rolled both ankles away from the grinding position the protruding bones rubbed against the cement. The heavy sensation of shackles followed; a bearable pressure that was easy to ignore.

Juuzou rose slightly more, sliding backwards to brace his back against the nearby wall. With a sharp shiver, he realized that the shirt he was wearing was certainly not his. And the stitches that were his had vanished.

The cell (he couldn't find another word that fit the barren dark room) wasn't large. Twelve feet square on estimate from what little his eyes could adjust to see. There was a door, slightly lighter in color than the surrounding stone or concrete.

The sudden flare of pain left Juuzou breathless, slinking downwards to hunch in on himself. The discomfort of his collarbones overwhelmed the faint detection of gnawing hunger in his stomach.

' _What- where am I?'_ Once more his eyes scanned the room, more attentive this time then his post-awakening. His estimations were fairly accurate, the door constructed of some sort of light colored metal. There was a large grate built into the floor that if he _stretched,_ the balls of his feet could just barely brush. The shackles on his feet were anchored into a point of the floor secured by massive bolts that were nearly rusted into the ground.

He eyed his ankles thoughtfully, _'I could break them but I don't think I could still get out.'_

His head also throbbed faintly of a headache, he brought his hand up to clutch the nape of his neck where the tendons bulged stiff and sore. The gritty powder of dried blood flaked away from a wound he hadn't remembered receiving.

"No point-" he gagged, coughing and hacking loudly at the searing burn in his throat. His mouth was filled with a disgustingly gummy sensation that didn't quite match the flinching hoarseness of his voice.

Clearing his throat once or twice more, he tried humming. His vocal chords functioned as expected. The hand nearest his head lowered to trace the contours of his neck. There were no marks or blemishes to explain his voice, leaving disuse as the only fathomable explanation left.

Juuzou rose awkwardly. His legs fumbled and shook resembling a newborn animal more than the usual ease of motion he had. No muscular strain or ache met his small stretches, allowing him a sense of relief for retaining his flexibility.

Stumbling over the grate (unusually not-sticky but Juuzou wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting), he made his way towards the door. Reaching out and touching the cold metal, he could feel no handle or way to open it from the inside.

There was a window in it, metal bars that were indistinguishable from the hallway across in the darkness although Juuzou could definitely feel the bars.

Perhaps if he managed to work the shackles off, he could use them to pry the bars out? The opening was small, a square foot at most but assuming he could wriggle his collarbones through he could definitely contort into a position able to slide out.

Grunting once to clear his throat he smiled slightly at the resulting echo.

 _'Ohhhh, I sound like a piggy.'_ He grinned, grunting a few more times just to hear it vanish down the hallway.

One larger grunt took a longer time to vanish, becoming more and more distant as the sound bounced off the walls and assuredly the other cells.

 _'This is a really big place.'_

Wildly shaking his hair, he could finally pinpoint the specific stitched gash in his head that had bled down his neck. The shape of it was unusual, stitched but not _his_ stitches. Like the uniform boring stitches he received once on a mission where his leg got a tiny nip. Shinohara had demanded he see the doctors, personally escorting him down to the facility.

 _'Shinohara!'_ He perked, desperately trying to peer out of his cell through the bars, ' _Is he here as well? What mission were we-'_

Juuzou's mind halted with an increasingly cold realization. Shivers caused small bumps to raise on the exposed skin of his arms and calves.

 _'I- we weren't on a mission, I was at the park.'_

Juuzou blinked in the dark. He _was_ at the park, he had been watching the bumblebees and their impossible wings flying from flower to flower. On occasion he had spotted a dog that looked strange to have been made through natural means, and he chased the local pigeons trying to catch them to see their funny waddles.

But if he had been in the park during the day, then how had he-

Juuzou gave a hoarse cry, stumbling backwards and nearly tripping on the anchor on the ground. Legs crunched under him, he started to scratch at the rusted bolts desperately as his anxiety increased.

' _Mama! I- there was a man! And and he did something and-'_

The burn in his chest altered to something reminiscent of nostalgic panic as he gasped and hurriedly inhaled air. It burned against his throat, a minor tinge Juuzou had long since learned to overlook.

 _'The man, did he drug me? I- I don't-'_ He shook his head wildly. His nail beds strained under the stress of his hurried clawing, _'He, he took me here. He said that- that I was worth a lot?'_

None of it was making sense to Juuzou. His memory was fuzzy and distorted with broken conversations he wasn't able to determine as real or dreamed. Regardless, he _had_ been in the park. He _knew_ that, obviously someone must have kidnapped him and taken him to-

Very slowly Juuzou raised his head to look at his cell once more. It was entirely different: the concrete wasn't aged stone, the door wasn't placed with torch sconces directly across, the hallway was much too long and not wide enough.

Despite the differences the situation brought back long forgotten terror and anxious fright as the surroundings were _similar enough…._

 _"_ Mama?" Juuzou asked quietly, the repeated echo bounced all around him as he strained his ears for the shouts and cries and the _roar and the crunching-_

He was in one of the cells of a ghoul auction or market or _restaurant_.

"Shinohara?" He mumbled, finally feeling a nail uproot and blood start to make his hands slick.

.

.

.

 _'Help'_


End file.
